Apple logo could double as notification light on future iPhones

iPhone users never really experienced the benefits of a notification light, something even some Android phone manufacturers are sometimes omitting from their devices. The closest to a notification light on an iPhone is the flash on the back which could alert you of some activity, but according to a new patent, Apple might solve the problem, and in an elegant way.

All iPhones have the Apple logo on the back, but future models could turn the logo into an actual notification light, as per the patent. The patent talks about the “decoration” which consists of a transparent layer with an adjustable optical component that can change how light would appear through that layer, as Digital Trends notes.

An electronic device, comprising: a housing having a transparent layer; adjustable decoration that is overlapped by the transparent layer and has an appearance when viewed through the transparent layer; and control circuitry configured to adjust the appearance in response to an event — patent

The patent specifically mentions a “cellular telephone”, which means that this would be iPhone specific, even though MacBooks have had Apple logos that were lit up for quite some time.